Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is there any crisis in education? If so, what is it?“

The crisis in education is that it is, on one hand, the world’s main problem, and on the other hand, it is not seen as the world’s main problem and is mostly neglected.

How is education the world’s main problem?

It means that what needs to be taught throughout all states, state institutions, from elementary schools through to retirement homes, is what having a correct attitude to each other means, and that negative attitudes to each other are the basis of all problems.

In other words, if we relate to each other with mutual consideration, then we would draw a positive force that dwells in nature to connect us harmoniously, and which would literally put an end to our myriad problems. And while we relate to each other negatively, i.e. egoistically, where we seek to enjoy at each other’s expense, we accumulate more and more problems and suffering in the world.

We should be introduced to such concepts from a young age, and we should receive explanations about these concepts regularly, even constantly. We would then gradually hear this message and understand the cause of all our problems: that we are egoists by nature, prioritizing self-benefit over benefiting others.

By becoming aware of the root cause of our problems, we then access half of the solution. That would already greatly benefit the world because we would then no longer look for the cause of our problems in places where they do not exist. We would put an end to creating all kinds of committees and organizations that try to solve our various problems with Band-Aid solutions, and we would know exactly what to focus on.

We would know that our entire problem is in our egoistic nature, and that it needs to somehow become corrected. We could then announce an international contest to solve this problem, discussing it in every possible place, seeking and accepting proposals for its solution.

We would publicize the people participating in seeking its solution, naming the winners as those people who wished to help out for free, and by doing so, we would create a global movement.

Gradually, we would be able to explain that egoism is humanity’s core problem, and that it can only be solved in a unique way, by the positive force dwelling in nature, which we can attract, and by doing so, solve our core problem. Moreover, by solving our core problem, we would put an end to literally all of our problems.

I trust that humanity has no other way. I know it. If we all discuss our need to change, that we are corrupted by nature, but that we need to change for the better, then like a prayer, we would receive a positive response, and it would work to change us for the better.

Based on “News with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman” on September 23, 2021. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: How can a person develop the necessary amount of patience?

Answer: It is only through the importance of the goal. What was I born for? Why do I exist? What am I living for and why do I die? Is the meaning of life to actually feel comfortable at any given moment?

This is very important for the corporeal body, of course. We can all agree with that because this is our nature. We fear pain and we fear hardships, each of us to a different extent; but that’s the way it is and we cannot do anything about it because this is our egoistic nature.

But if I am in a group and it speaks about the greatness of our path and about the importance of the goal of life, and if I somehow lower my head and don’t raise it in pride with regard to them, if I am impressed by the importance of the goal that they feel and I subdue myself to their impact, then I feel the powers to advance.

Furthermore, it is important to burn the bridges behind me. When I found my teacher I burned everything I had before. I had a successful business and everything a man needs in life, but I immediately parted from that so that there was no going back, so that I could no longer restore anything. I moved to live near my teacher Rabash and by that cut off any contact with my past.

I began a new life, a more modest life, more limited in every sense, but next to my teacher. So it was already very difficult to change my life.

When we are under the influence of the environment and negative thoughts, we need to tie ourselves to the right path as much as possible, just as sailors tie themselves to the deck so that stormy waves will not wash them overboard.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 2/13/19

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Comment: Kabbalah says that the nature of a woman is the receiving part and a man’s the bestowing one.

My Response: This is very conditional. In the spiritual world the quality of bestowal is called male and the quality of receiving is called female. But we are not talking about a man and a woman in our world. This is how spiritual forces are divided.

Where do we see these manifestations? If a man practices Kabbalah correctly, he attains the spiritual force first and then transfers it to the woman. But the woman helps him in this, and without her help, he cannot achieve anything. A woman is that desire with the help of which a man attains the upper force, reveals the Creator.

Thus, their partnership is necessary from the very minimum level. Therefore, in the past Kabbalists did not accept men who were not married as their students.

But in our time, to achieve a real spiritual state, it is necessary to have a combination of both a man and a woman, directed toward the Creator.

Hopefully, we are now approaching the generation in which the right spiritual combination will appear between couples.
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FFrom KabTV’s “Close-Up. Emancipation” 9/16/09

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Prophets, Joshua, 24:3: And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the river, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac.

From the land lying between the Tigris and the Euphrates, from egoistic desires and goals, the Creator guided the children of Israel to completely different desires and intentions, to a different level of existence. It is allegorically written in the Torah that they seemingly physically left the other side and came to this land.

The fact is that a completely new ideology started to awaken in Abraham: questions about the meaning of life and the desire to attain the upper force. As a result of an internal search, this gradually led him to the Creator.

Question: What is “Abraham” inside of us?

Answer: It is a state when one is looking for his purpose in life, he suffers, gets confused, but still finds it. It is arranged specifically so that he finally finds out what he needs on this earth. And when the Creator reveals the true meaning of life to him, he understands that this is everything.

Within our desires, we want to reach the truth. How will it appear to us? You cannot present it to a child but only to a person who has been searching for a long time, has evolved, and will be able to grasp this truth.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/6/21

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Comment: They say that the world is facing a severe shortage of electricity. What skeptics have warned about is happening: the energy of wind turbines and solar panels cannot replace traditional sources.

In 2035, New York was going to switch to electric cars, but they calculated that if electric cars start charging in the evening, there will not be enough electricity for the entire metropolis.

Alternative energy turned out to be so temperamental that last winter in Texas, blades of wind turbines froze due to the cold. There were no winds blowing over the Netherlands and Denmark this autumn. In Germany, solar panels were blanketed with snow. All this is unpredictable.

There has already been talk that gas itself is not so harmful and that nuclear energy is also green energy. They believe that everything will remain: gas, oil, and coal.

My Response: There will never be enough energy. Maybe we should consider reducing consumption and preventing the manufacture of such a large number of electric vehicles and cars in general. We need to set a task for us to reduce consumption.

First, people should not work so much. Three days a week is enough instead of five.

No one needs all this! This does not add happiness to people and we see this absolutely clearly; there is no need for any proof.

Let’s make sure that people have more time for rest, walking, sports, family, communication, conversations, discussions among themselves, and so on. It is so that people identify this as something necessary. We need to charge ourselves with green energy! This is what we are missing.

Question: Do you think that even nuclear energy can work safely if there is such an attitude in people?

Answer: Of course. It is a blessing that nuclear energy has been discovered. Now we only need to improve it and, on the other hand, reduce consumption so that there will be enough of it for everything.

Comment: You just said that man should spend more time with his family, read more, and communicate more. I remember that a long time ago we kept saying that humanity would come to this. But it has not happened yet.

My Response: No, we cannot run to a quiet, calm, balanced life. We will always be pulled by some illusionary goals and ideals. As a result, hoarding will destroy us.

Question: How can we stop?

Answer: There is no way.

Question: Then what are you demanding if it is impossible?

Answer: Recognition of evil, of the fact that you cannot stop.

Comment: When man realizes that he cannot stop, that he is such a creature, and there is this evil of hoarding in him…

My Response: This is already recognition of evil. Then it will be possible to think about how to come out of this.

This is how man will come to green energy within himself, i.e., to balance. We just need to balance everything that is in man.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 9/30/21

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We cannot express concepts of the upper world in words or letters from our world because our whole lexicon reflects sensations from our five senses. The greatest difficulty is when we have to express certain knowledge in words and publish it for the sake of discussion as is customary in scientific research. This is the reason that a Kabbalist has to use definitions that are absolutely accurate.

We encounter a double problem here.

On one hand the wisdom of Kabbalah is the wisdom of attaining the law of nature, but attaining that internal part, the internal layer of nature that we do not feel through our five senses or instruments we invent. Basically there is no way of feeling this internal layer of nature called the upper world, which the wisdom of Kabbalah tells us about, inside of us or through instruments that we can build.

Special actions that are connected according to special laws take place there, laws of reception and bestowal, of ascent and descent. In general, there are certain forces, their actions, and their consequences. Unfortunately we cannot see that with our corporeal senses.

Just as we can speak about atoms and molecules in our world, but if all these micro, macro, and other processes are not perceived by our senses, there is nothing we can do. Until we invent certain devices, we cannot feel them.

And in Kabbalah, we can create this instrument inside us. It is impossible to reveal the upper world, the Partzufim, the Sefirot, the worlds, etc. by any external instrument. It is all only on the level of our personal, internal attainment.

So, in order to begin to feel the upper world, its laws, its attributes, and its actions, we must bring ourselves to a more sensitive state, increase our sensitivity, and bring our qualities to such a level that we will be able to feel what happens in the basis of our world, at its foundation.

Second, we cannot express what we feel. This is the reason why Kabbalists had to invent a special language that would reflect our five special senses. We call them by names that we do not understand, such as: Kli (vessel), Ohr (light), Masach (screen), Ohr Hozer (reflecting light), etc. This means that Kabbalists make definitions for themselves and ordinary people do not understand where they got them from.

As we advance in the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah, we begin to feel there are accurate actions behind these names and terms. We begin to feel that very fine changes are actually taking place here as a result of our efforts, and we can determine the level of our actions, which means that everything is gradually included in our lexicon of concepts and later in our sensory attainments.

This study and its gradual internal development bring us to a gradual understanding of the language that Kabbalah books are written in. It is called the language of branches. In other words, there are roots in the upper world, and in our world there are branches of these roots that we can feel and study. Thus, we can determine their roots according to their names and according to their actions and attributes.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 10/6/19

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #45 “Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #44 “Mind and Heart” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 86

Selected Highlights

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My new article on Linkedin “The Climate Waits for No One”

Thirty years ago, a friend of mine got into the green energy business and tried to pull me into it. I asked him what for, it isn’t serious. He said, “You have no idea how much money is being poured into it. Everyone wants in on it, politicians, financiers, businesspeople, the lot.” He was right, of course. Yet, no one wants to promote green energy in order to save the planet, but only to swell up their pockets even more. The declarations, therefore, remain in the assembly hall where they are stated, necessary actions are ignored, and the climate waits for no one: It will keep deteriorating.

This week in Glasgow, Scotland, the 26th UN Climate Change Conference is taking place. Officially, it aims to “bring parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.” In reality, the countries plan to do the exact opposite. This year’s UN Production Gap Report, which tracks the discrepancy between governments’ planned fossil fuel production and actual global production levels, states the following: “Despite increased climate ambitions and net-zero commitments, governments still plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than what would be consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C [2.7°F].”

Energy sources and technologies do change, but not according to what is best for the planet. It changes according to the interests of politicians and money moguls, and it never benefits the planet or the majority of its inhabitants, namely all of us.

Since the climate waits for no one, eventually, it will catch up with us. Earth is a closed system, and in a closed system, there are consequences to exploitation: it hurts the abuser as well as the abused.

I don’t know when or at what cost, but eventually, we will all have to realize that we cannot take beyond what we need. We cannot keep exploiting Earth selfishly and thoughtlessly because it will turn against us.

Earth is like a submarine: there is only so much oxygen on board. If some crew members take more than their quota, the rest will not have enough, they will die, and the submarine will sink along with those who exceeded their quota.

We need constant reminders that we are one system, and we are all dependent on each other. We need to genuinely grasp that selfishness hurts us just as being exploitative hurts others. If we constantly remind ourselves that we are interdependent, we will behave with more consideration, and we will avoid the punitive impact of climate change.

The other option is to keep working as the UN’s Production Gap Report states that we are planning to work, and suffer nature’s unforgiving response. I hope we wise up in time because everyone will pay the price for this mistake.

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My new article on Linkedin “When Will Conspiracies about Jews End?”

The latest fabrication about Jews is that we are profiting from the spread of the coronavirus. Who exactly are those Jewish profiteers? Is it all of them or just those who are scheming this? To the haters, it makes no difference. The only thing that matters is that the word “Jew” is attached once more to the word “blame.”

This isn’t new. We have been accused of every woe that humanity has ever suffered. Everything that upsets, offends, hurts, or otherwise displeases people, they often attribute to the Jews. Jews have suffered from blood libels such as baking matzahs (the Passover bread) with the blood of Christian children. In the Middle-Ages, they were accused of poisoning wells. Later, they were said to dominate the slave trade from Africa to America, and they have always been accused of disloyalty to the countries where they live.

When it comes to plagues, you can be certain that the blame will go to the Jews. We have been accused of causing the Black Death in the 14th century, spreading AIDS in the 20th century, and in this century, we are accused of spreading Covid-19.

Jews have also been accused of manipulating the media to serve their needs, and modernity has also created a new kind of blood libel, accusing Jews of organ harvesting. Moreover, Jews are often accused of conflicting “crimes.” Communists accused them of creating capitalism; capitalists accused them of inventing communism. Christians accused Jews of killing Jesus, and the French philosopher François Voltaire accused them of inventing and spreading Christianity.

In short, any view that people disagree with, they blame its invention on the Jews. As if all this is not enough, Jews have also been labeled as warmongers and as cowards, racists and cosmopolitans, spineless and unbending, and so on and so forth ad infinitum.

Yet, the fact that antisemitism is irrational does not mean that it is without merit, without a root that causes it. In fact, thinking that there is no reason for antisemitism is just as irrational as antisemitism itself. Just as there is no smoke without a fire, nothing can happen without something that causes it. In the case of Jew-hatred, that something has been fueling the fire for millennia. Therefore, since there is clearly a cause, we should find it, treat it if we can, and cure it before the flames burst once again and land another blow on our people.

So how will Jew-hatred end? I think we can find the answer in the words of Dr. Kurt Fleischer, leader of the Liberals in the Berlin Jewish Community Assembly before the Nazis came to power. In 1929, he argued, “Anti-Semitism is the scourge that God has sent us in order to lead us together and weld us together.”

We established our nationhood when we pledged to unite “as one man with one heart”; we were dispersed and exiled for hating one another for no reason; and we will regain our nationhood when we restore our unity. We were chosen to set an example, to be “a light unto nations,” and no declarations that we are like everyone else will help. Our “chosenness” has never been about science, culture, or ingenuity.

We have given the world Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, and Leonard Bernstein. A quarter of Nobel Prize laureates are Jewish, though we are only 0.2% of the world’s population, but is anyone thankful? I have yet to hear applause.

The world does not thank us for our contribution in these fields because this is not the contribution it expects from us. The world is not ungrateful; it is dissatisfied because it is not getting what it really needs from us: an example of unity.

Our sages have always told us that when we are united, we are so strong that no one can defeat us. It is true not because of our military might, but because our unity inverts the nations’ hatred toward us into respect and gratitude.

The more divided the world becomes, the more it grows antisemitic. It is not a conscious process, but a natural, instinctive reaction on the part of a world that awaits an example of unity, and no one can provide it but the group that has been designated to do so: the Jewish people.

We need not fight against antisemitism; it is a waste of time. We need to fight against our hatred for each other. This is the only cure for the growing Jew-hatred and the storm clouds amassing around the Jewish people once again.
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